kingnovel Chapter 675 Winter Development
Chapter 675 Winter Development
During this long winter, Liaodong's development never stopped. All major workshops were actively producing materials, and the Craftsman Bureau was also continuously making weapons.
Swords, spears, halberds, armor and shields, strong bows and crossbows, and all kinds of arrows.
Over the years, Liaodong has always attached great importance to the training and improvement of craftsmen. The welfare benefits of various craftsmen are no worse than those of some officials, and there is also a complete reward mechanism.
Every six months, Liaodong officials will conduct comprehensive evaluations and technical assessments on various craftsmen. For those craftsmen who have made outstanding contributions, reached a certain level of technology, or have made major inventions, they will not only receive various monetary and material rewards, but can also continuously upgrade their levels.
Lu Cheng asked Tian Yu and others to divide the craftsmen into four grades, A, B, C, and D, according to their technical levels. Each grade was further divided into three levels, upper, middle, and lower. Grade A was the highest grade of craftsmen, and Grade D was the lowest grade of craftsmen.
The salary, year-end benefits, and various special benefits of craftsmen are all determined by their level. If the craftsman's level reaches the lower grade of Grade C, he can enjoy free education for his children. If the level reaches the upper grade of Grade C, he can enjoy free medical care for his family.
It can be said that no matter you are a blacksmith, carpenter, or shipbuilder, as long as your technical level reaches a certain level and you make contributions to Liaodong, you can enjoy the benefits that only many officials can enjoy.
Because of this, the work and creative enthusiasm of Liaodong craftsmen were greatly boosted.
The people of the Chinese nation have never lacked creativity. As long as good conditions are created for them, they can actively mobilize their wisdom and independently advance the technological level.
At the beginning, the craftsmen still needed to rely on the various technical data and drawings provided by Lu Cheng, and only after constant exploration could they create various products that met the needs.
Later on, Lu Cheng only needed to come up with an idea or a general thought, and these craftsmen could try to improve the technology, enhance product quality, or invent new products.
In terms of armor, relying on the materials produced by excellent smelting technology, those craftsmen can now create various types of top-level armor with extremely strong defensive capabilities, such as Ming Guang armor, infantry armor, and Shanwen armor.
In Liaodong, every general above the rank of military officer can choose a set of armor from various top-level armors.
You know, such armor would be regarded as a family heirloom in other military families.
As for weapons, Liaodong's various types of swords, spears, swords and halberds can definitely be said to be the best in the world.
After Xu Chu, Dian Wei and other generals arrived in Liaodong, they immediately discarded their original weapons and went to the craftsman's workshop to have new fine steel weapons tailor-made for them.
Today, the entire Liaodong population is nearly two million, the regular army is still 150,000, and the number of cavalry remains at around 30,000.
There are about 100,000 garrison troops who work in peacetime, train in leisure time, and defend the city in wartime.
In fact, with Liaodong's productivity and agricultural level, even if the army is expanded by about 100,000, it can still be supported. But now Liaodong has begun to take the route of elite troops.
Well-equipped sword and shield soldiers, crossbowmen, spearmen, archer phalanxes, archer phalanxes equipped with light armor, bows and arrows, and goose-feather swords, and lancers equipped with spears and armor have all been deployed and trained.
Now, Liaodong has begun to form a heavy cavalry phalanx with both men and horses equipped with armor.
In this era, an elite heavy cavalry unit heading onto the battlefield is absolutely like a steel torrent like tanks, unstoppable.
Of course, all kinds of elite troops in Liaodong cooperate with each other and make real-time adjustments according to the needs of the war, and will never allow the enemy to seize the weaknesses of a certain type of troops to break through.
Just like Gongsun Zan's White Horse Volunteers in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, they were completely suppressed by Ju Yi's vanguard soldiers on that special battlefield at Jie Bridge.
As an excellent light cavalry, the biggest advantage of the White Horse Volunteers is their speed as fast as the wind in the wilderness. Once this advantage is lost, their shortcomings will be easily exposed.
Speaking of which, nowadays, most of the earliest generals in Liaodong have already trained one or two elite troops.
Zhao Yun had an elite group of lancers under his command, which had great assault capabilities in the wilderness, even slightly better than Gongsun Zan's White Horse Volunteers.
Taishi Ci had a team of elite cavalry archers under his command, who mainly used mounted archery tactics, which was exactly the same as the "Mangudai" tactics of later Mongolians. In fact, it was a kite-flying tactic of shooting arrows while in motion.
Huang Zhong trained a team of elite archers and a team of broadsword soldiers under his command, and had two elite troops at the same time.
Zhang Liao was basically learning from Zhao Yun and also trained as a spearman.
Zhou Cang, who was the first to follow Lu Cheng, had an elite phalanx of sword and shield soldiers and a troop of crossbowmen under his command.
Of course, these are just their elite troops, just like Guan Yu's five hundred swordmen. In addition to these elite troops, they also have some other types of soldiers and horses that can cooperate with each other.
With so many elite troops, even without relying on epoch-making weapons such as firearms, the Liaodong troops are enough to dominate the world.
In the cold weapon era, when an army lost nearly 10% of its troops, it would be defeated. Those who could still fight after losing more than 30% of their troops were truly elite.
In Liaodong, after perfect training and ideological education, the army's sense of honor and willpower have been greatly enhanced. It only takes a few actual battles to become a true elite.
Lu Cheng has always believed in a principle that quality is more important than quantity. The value of an elite veteran soldier can be equivalent to that of several or even dozens of untrained civilians.
After Guo Jia, Lu Su, Xi Zhicai and others learned about the troops in Liaodong, they all had to sigh: There is no stronger army in the world than this.
As the New Year was approaching, Liaodong welcomed another great event.
At the end of the fifth year of Zhongping, Lu Cheng married Cai Zhaoji, the daughter of the great Confucian scholar Cai Yong, and at the same time married Zhen Jiang, the eldest daughter of the Zhen family.
Needless to say, there are a lot of complicated formalities.
Of course, the little girl Zhen Jiang is still being raised for the time being, and she is taking body-building pills to improve her physique and develop her physical potential.
Because medical practitioners of that era had not fully developed and utilized ginseng, ginseng in Liaodong was still growing wildly.
In the past few years, Lu Cheng specially had people collect a large amount of wild ginseng and harvest a lot of deer antlers, and prepared some low-end versions of health-enhancing soups, which were either given to some middle and low-level generals in the army, or used to improve the physical fitness of some elite troops, or given to the families of some of his subordinates.
In this fulfilling and busy atmosphere, the precarious Han Dynasty went through the five years of Zhongping.
In February of the sixth year of Zhongping (189 AD), Liu Yu, governor of Jizhou, sent envoys to contact the Xianbei tribes, preparing to subdue the Xianbei and Wuhuan tribes with a conciliatory policy. Gongsun Zan, governor of Youbeiping, decided to eliminate the Wuhuan by force, which led to a conflict with Liu Yu.
In addition, Liu Yu advocated frugality and kindness to the people. He could not stand Gongsun Zan's arrogant soldiers and generals oppressing the people. He repeatedly asked Gongsun Zan to restrain his soldiers and wrote a letter to impeach Gongsun Zan. The conflict between the two sides became more and more intense.
Afterwards, Gongsun Zan directly sent people to intercept and kill the envoys sent by Liu Yu to the Xianbei and Wuhuan, which led to the escalation of conflicts with Liu Yu.
While the entire western part of Youzhou was surging with undercurrents, Liaodong in the east of Youzhou was preparing for war.
After the snow melted, Zhao Yun, Taishi Ci, and Zhang Liao each led a cavalry unit, totaling 8,000 light cavalry, out of Liaodong and headed northwest, attacking the Liaoxi Xianbei led by Kebi Neng...